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I have my music files back. It took a lot of time to get them to my laptop and still longer to figure out how to get iTunes to see them. I still don't have my playlists, and I'm kind of exhausted at the prospect of trying to rebuild them.

I've written about 900 words in the last twenty four hours. I started writing about 10:30 last night (when I needed to be in bed at 11:00). I'm not sure why the words tend to start flowing then. I've written more this morning, but I kind of desperately need more sleep, so I don't know how much more I'll write before I do that. All of the words are on the Not Prime Time story, so that's now over the minimum word count.

I had a headache all night, not bad enough to get up and do something about it but bad enough to be aware of it when I moved. My morning tea and breakfast seem to have either killed it or pushed it below the threshold of awareness.

Scott has purchased some motion sensitive night lights. He put one up just outside our bedroom because he's worried that we'll get hurt when we get up to use the bathroom in the middle of the night. I hate the damned thing already. He's got it right at my eye level which would also be Cordelia's eye level. That means that, when it comes on, it's a bright flash right in my eyes. I'm sure that problem never occurred to Scott because he's a foot taller than we are. The time I'm in the bathroom is just long enough for it to turn itself off, so it's another startling, painful flash of brightness when I head back to the bedroom.

We've lived here for more than twenty years, and I've never had problems going from bed to the bathroom in the dark, so I feel like Scott's bought a technological solution to a non-existent problem.

Scott and Cordelia both liked Wonder Woman, generally speaking. They didn't have any specifics that they didn't like, but they also didn't have specifics that they out and out loved.

This week is going to be sporadically busy. Tomorrow afternoon, I have a mammogram and an appointment with radiation oncology. My SIL is coming with me. Last year was so horribly stressful that I thought I'd better have company. I don't expect any problems, but... Wednesday evening is our biweekly game night. Thursday, Cordelia's eighth grade graduation is in the morning. My parents are coming for that. In the evening, there's a picnic for all of the eighth grade families. I think there's enough space in there for me not to end up brain fried. I hope so anyway.

(no subject)

Scott and I had a discussion last night about tabletop RPG rule systems that was both extremely frustrating and fairly enlightening. The first thing that became clear was that we had very, very different definitions of 'simple' and 'flexible' when it comes to rules systems. I don't think either of us are necessarily wrong

He adores FATE and Cortex Plus while I look at them and shudder. I prefer some sort of percentile system or GURPS that's very, very, very light on the rules/dice or, if I can get it, something diceless. I once played a game where we traded off GMs every hour, and each GM had a preferred dice system, so we changed that regularly, too, even though we had continuous plot and characters.

I think the basic problem is that he considers the rules and the manipulation of the rules to be an interesting part of the game, a way of simulating character problem solving efforts. I don't. I compared it to min-maxing during character creation. I find it mechanical rather than creative and an active impediment to the parts of the game that I'm actually interested in.

I want dice/rules to be an added factor that can make the story go in an unexpected direction from time to time. He wants dice/rules to be tools that both players and GM use shape the story into their preferred lines.

It took me a lot of effort to get Scott to understand what I was trying to say.

Scott thinks that my preferred style of play only works with long established trust between players and GM and that it's really easy to screw up. He's probably right. I'm more on the improv/collaborative writing end of things. Whatever results the dice give, the point is to come up with a cool and compelling story that everyone present is into. I know that he can run games for a lot of players who I can't really manage because I have trouble with players who aren't enthusiastic about story in the ways that I am.

For Scott, a game is flexible if the rules will allow players to put together problem solving approaches based on how the rules work, a very engineering approach. For me, it's flexible if it allows a wide range of settings, genres, character types, etc. without insisting on divisions that hem the story in.

Explaining what we each mean by 'simple' is harder and not something I'm prepared to tackle just now because my brain is turning to goo.